Her Flame Still Burns / O'Connor thrills devoted crowd at Warfield

Natasha Stovall, Special to The Chronicle

Published 4:00 am, Thursday, August 14, 1997

"How could I possibly know what I want when I was only 21?" Sinead O'Connor sang Tuesday night, opening the first of a two-night stand at the Warfield with "The Emperor's New Clothes," a 7-year-old song that still speaks volumes about her contentious relationship to the world, which hit bottom when she tore up a picture of the pope on "Saturday Night Live" in 1992.

"They laugh because they know they're untouchable," she sang to big cheers, "not because what I said was wrong."

If there is doubt that O'Connor -- who has been alternately lauded and laughed at throughout her 10-year career -- is still beloved, the hoarse outpouring by Tuesday's audience should lay it to rest.

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O'Connor's entrance -- in a silky blue kimono dress and short haircut -- drove the crowd to ecstasy. Screams of "I love you" echoed all night.

O'Connor's program leaned heavily toward melancholy ballads, which she leavened with funky rave-ups. Her voice, strong as ever, was supple and full, ringing clear as a church girl's one minute and raggedy as a carney's the next.

The dominant instrument, besides O'Connor's formidable pipes, was the bass guitar. It gave weight to the sadness of some songs and a danceable bottom to others.

O'Connor had with her the bassist, a guitarist, keyboard player, electric piano player, drummer and electric cello player. Her opening band, a quartet of young women called the Screaming Orphans, doubled as her backup singers. Their joyful bopping sharply contrasted with O'Connor's reserve, almost as if they were stand-ins for her carefree innocence, long gone.

O'Connor drew material from three of her five records, ignoring her passionately acclaimed first offering, "The Lion and the Cobra," and "Am I Not Your Girl," her collection of jazz standards.

The raw rage that characterized her early years has given way to pained introspection. O'Connor is still angry, especially politically; works like "This Is a Rebel Song" and her interpretation of Bob Marley's "Redemption Song," which she played as an encore, make that clear.

But she seems to fear the consequences of her anger more, which may explain why her earliest, most wild-eyed work went unplayed.

O'Connor's roots lie in Irish traditional music, and she either plays her tunes straight, as simple, folksy ballads, or she lays hip- hop and dance rhythms over her Celtic strains.

Songs like "In This Heart" and "John, I Love You" consisted of O'Connor's voice and little else. Her final song of the night was "He Moves Through the Fair," an Irish folk song she sang nearly a cappella, accompanied fleetingly by cello and piano.

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On the other hand, "Fire on Babylon" and "Petit Poulet" shook the Warfield's floorboards.

But the most rousing number of the night was one of O'Connor's saddest songs. She turned "The Last Day of Our Acquaintance" -- about a ruined love affair -- into a huge rock 'n' roll romp.

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